In TurnKey 11, instead of installing the root filesystem directly to a fixed size partition, we setup LVM by default, and install the root filesystem to a Logical Volume, which may later be expanded, even across multiple physical devices.

Unfortunately, as with anything powerful, to get the most out of LVM you first have to negotiate a learning curve. From the feedback we've been getting it seems that confusion regarding LVM is common with new users, so here's a quick "crash course"...

A few days ago I noticed the average load on a newly setup VPS was too high relative to its workload. The server was noticeably sluggish. Load was high and a page the wiki it was running would occasionally take 10 seconds to load.

I didn't have too much time to kill but I decided I would at least try picking off the lowest hanging fruit before upgrading to a beefier, more expensive plan which would cost a few hundred dollars extra a year.

Ever tried logging into a machine with ssh and found you have to wait much longer than reasonable for the session to start? This happened to me a few times and was especially annoying with machines on my local network (or a VM attached to a virtual network) that should be letting me in immediately.

Content managements systems like the one we're using for the web site (Drupal) need to provide a privileged administration interface which you usually want to access securely. Due to the insecure nature of the Internet, it's reasonable to assume your traffic may be intercepted at some point. So how do you prevent that?

Up until recently, we used SSL. You could access the web site from both: